Sean Gillies/Sean Gillies BlogenFri, 16 Feb 2018 01:46:51 GMTNikola (getnikola.com)http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssBengaluru Bound/2018/02/15/bengaluru-bound.htmlSean Gillies<div><p>One of my teammates, Pratik Yadav, lives and works in <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore">Bengaluru</a>, India. Last
October I had the pleasure of hosting Pratik in Fort Collins for week. Next
week I'm going to be in the Mapbox Bengaluru office to work and experience
what it's like to be working at Mapbox on India Standard Time.</p>
<p>Unlike my Indian colleagues, who have been to Western universities and travel
to Europe for conferences and DC or San Francisco for work, I've never spent
any time in the other hemisphere. This will be my first trip east of Prague,
14.42 degrees east, ever.</p>
<p>Bengaluru has a climate that you can't find in the United States. It's at 12
degrees north and 920 meters (3020 feet). The weather forecast for the next 10
ten days is like a dry June on the Front Range: a low of 60 °F and high of 88
°F and no rain. I've been in the foothills of the Venezuelan Andes before,
which is probably similar in some ways, but I'm expecting all kinds of
surprises. Once upon a time I wanted to be a climatologist and I'm still pretty
geeked about climate. Bengaluru's seems to be special.</p>
<p>I'm on the road for 8 days starting tomorrow. Forgive me for late replies to
emails and GitHub issues, as I'll be offset 12.5 hours from my usual schedule.
I'll blog about the trip after I'm back and will probably post to Instagram
a little more than usual.</p></div>bengalurulifetravelwork/2018/02/15/bengaluru-bound.htmlFri, 16 Feb 2018 00:52:06 GMTMidwinter malaise/2018/02/12/midwinter-malaise.htmlSean Gillies<p>February has sucked from a health and fitness point of view. I had <a class="reference external" href="https://sgillies.net/2018/02/03/the-flu.html">the flu</a>. I've had bronchitis. Today
I have come down with a cold, the day I intended to make up the long run
I missed while skiing on Sunday. I've lost a week and a half of training
already this month and am going to spend the next two weekends in airports and
planes. I'm starting to revise my expectations for the Quad Rock from "kicking
ass" to "finishing" and am looking for any silver linings at all. My left
hamstring, which I strained at the end of January, is feeling nicely rested, so
there's that.</p>lifesicknessugh/2018/02/12/midwinter-malaise.htmlTue, 13 Feb 2018 01:48:43 GMTMidwinter running/2018/02/04/midwinter-running.htmlSean Gillies<div><p>The Fort Collins foothills trails were closed today because of wet conditions
and so I drove to the Riverbend Ponds Natural Area on the east edge of the city
to run. It was grey and cold (-8 °C) and muddy or icy depending on how much sun
or shade a segment of trail had received on Saturday. I tried out my new shoes,
New Balance Hierro (v3), and found them good on ice and snow and less good in the mud.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4704/28305771899_52bcdba6cb_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4704/28305771899_52bcdba6cb_b.jpg">
</div>
<p>A weird thing happened on the other side of the bridge in the photo above. See
the figure in black at the very top right? It was a young man walking his dog,
a small German Shepherd mix, on a retractable lead. As I passed them on the
trail his dog rushed me and jumped up and seized my arm! Very briefly and
lightly I'm happy to report, so I've got no tears in my arm or my clothing.
I think the blame here is mostly on me: I didn't read the dog well or slow down
as I approached. I got a free reminder of how fast and potentially dangerous
dogs are: unless you're Bruce Lee, you're likely to get bitten if you get in
a fight with a dog, even if it's just a misunderstanding. Best to avoid these
misunderstandings!</p></div>dogslifeoutdoorsrunningwinter/2018/02/04/midwinter-running.htmlMon, 05 Feb 2018 00:09:34 GMTThe flu/2018/02/03/the-flu.htmlSean Gillies<p>I appear to have the flu. I had chills and a cough on Wednesday night and
a fairly miserable trip home from the Mapbox all-hands event. I took Friday off
to rest and began to feel better in the evening. I slept well last night and
was beginning to make plans to get some exercise so I don't fall too far behind
in my training, but my temperature is back up to 39 °C (102 °F) this morning.
Instead I think I'll drink cold water and watch Stranger Things, maybe get out
for a short run or walk if I feel better in the afternoon. Ugh.</p>flulifeugh/2018/02/03/the-flu.htmlSat, 03 Feb 2018 16:43:24 GMTRIP, Ursula K. Le Guin/2018/01/23/rip-ursula-k-le-guin.htmlSean Gillies<div><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/obituaries/ursula-k-le-guin-acclaimed-for-her-fantasy-fiction-is-dead-at-88.html">Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88</a>.</p>
<p>I mentioned Le Guin in my <a class="reference external" href="https://sgillies.net/2018/01/21/the-broken-earth-trilogy.html">previous post</a>. I did feel
guilty about wanting something extra from her books, and feel more guilty
today. Her writing moved me, and more as I matured and began to appreciate our
mortality.</p>
<p>Ruth mailed me a line from the Lathe of Heaven this afternoon.</p>
<p>"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new."</p>
<p>― Ursula K. Le Guin</p></div>booksle guinlife/2018/01/23/rip-ursula-k-le-guin.htmlWed, 24 Jan 2018 04:05:44 GMTThe Broken Earth Trilogy/2018/01/21/the-broken-earth-trilogy.htmlSean Gillies<div><p>I've just finished "The Stone Sky," and with that, J.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth
series. Damn, what a trio of books. I haven't been this engrossed in novels in
a long time. I'm behind the curve in reading and figure that almost anybody
reading this post has already them. If you haven't, don't worry, no major
spoilers here. There <em>are</em> spoilers in the blog posts that I link below,
however.</p>
<p>I predict that I'll be coming back to this series in time, like I have with Le
Guin's Earthsea books. <a class="reference external" href="http://nkjemisin.com/2015/08/tricking-readers-into-acceptance/">Essun</a> is,
I think, right there with Ged as the most complete and most human wizard in all
of fantasy literature. And her <a class="reference external" href="http://nkjemisin.com/2015/10/on-family/">family</a>, allies, and enemies are also
portrayed with great care. The descriptions of the landscapes and cityscapes,
both living and dead, warrant another read, for sure.</p>
<p>I shouldn't compare Jemisin to Le Guin, but I always (guiltily) wanted more
action in Le Guin's stories, and I found myself instantly hooked by the
punctuations of danger, force, and urgency in the Broken Earth series. It's
a thrilling tale that lives up to all the hype.</p>
<p>Next up on my reading list: "The Trail Runner's Companion" and "The
Architecture of Open Source Applications." I'm going to cherry pick some
chapters from the latter. I'm mostly interested in lessons from Berkeley DB,
HDFS, and LLVM.</p></div>booksbroken earthfifth seasonlifen.k. jemisinobelisk gatereading/2018/01/21/the-broken-earth-trilogy.htmlSun, 21 Jan 2018 18:30:00 GMTBobcat Ridge 2/2018/01/20/bobcat-ridge-2.htmlSean Gillies<div><p>Inertia struck me and my family and we didn't make the drive to Denver for the
Women's March. Instead, I spent my afternoon at Bobcat Ridge Natural Area
trying to squeeze in a long run before tonight's storm. I ran up the Ginny
Trail and down on and back on the D.R. and Valley Loop trails, 17 kilometers in
all, and 550 meters of elevation gain. The view from the top of Green Ridge is
great. The only defect is that Longs peak is hidden by other, nearer mountains.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4758/24935209197_6f8acbe979_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4758/24935209197_6f8acbe979_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Palisade Mountain in the center, flanked by Sheep Mountain on the left and
Crosier Mountain on the right. Longs Peak is behind Palisade Mountain.</p>
</div>
<p>The Ginny trail is named after Ethel Virginia Pulliam and the D.R. trail after
her husband, David Rice Pulliam. The couple were the owners of the ranch that
became Bobcat Ridge Natural Area.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4678/39095477924_a5972ff9ab_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4678/39095477924_a5972ff9ab_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Mahoney Park</p>
</div>
<p>Mahoney Park is a small, flat, grassy basin dotted with rounded granite knobs,
like a <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedauwoo">Vedauwoo</a> or Joshua Tree in
miniature. The trail builders made sure that it winds among the rock in an
amusing way. Beyond Mahoney Park, the D.R. trail is nicely wooded and covered
with pine needles, a very pleasurable place to run.</p>
<p>I sure do feel fortunate to live in a city that has the foresight and funds to
buy and preserve such unique open space.</p></div>bobcat ridgegreen ridgelifeoutdoorsrunning/2018/01/20/bobcat-ridge-2.htmlSun, 21 Jan 2018 01:12:23 GMTReading glasses/2018/01/15/reading-glasses.htmlSean Gillies<div><p>I bought my first pair of glasses with non-zero optical power last week: 1.0
dioptre reading glasses. These Twist readers are cheap ($20) and fold flat,
which is a pretty cool feature. I chose yellow-green frames to help protect
them from getting accidentally crushed.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4620/25840583328_42e8c52c80_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4620/25840583328_42e8c52c80_b.jpg">
</div>
<p>I had to remind myself what a dioptre is: it's the reciprocal of the optical
length (in meters) of a lens, m<sup>-1</sup>. This unit of measurement is the work of Ferdinand
Monoyer, a French ophthalmologist. A Google doodle on May 9, 2017 <a class="reference external" href="https://www.google.com/doodles/ferdinand-monoyers-181st-birthday?hl=fr">commemorated Dr.
Monoyer's work on his birthday</a>.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://www.google.com/logos/doodles/2017/ferdinand-monoyers-181st-birthday-5105939098107904.4-2xa.gif" src="https://www.google.com/logos/doodles/2017/ferdinand-monoyers-181st-birthday-5105939098107904.4-2xa.gif">
</div></div>glasseslife/2018/01/15/reading-glasses.htmlMon, 15 Jan 2018 21:41:36 GMTQuack, quack, quack/2018/01/14/quack-quack-quack.htmlSean Gillies<div><p>I ate duck often when living in France and have been missing it this winter.
Farm-raised ducks are not easy to find in Colorado. I've never seen duck at
King Soopers. Whole Foods has whole frozen ducks occasionally. Some local CSAs
advertise duck eggs, but not meat. In Montpellier, fresh never-frozen duck was
not cheap, but it was almost always available.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4748/38760801605_67e1819239_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4748/38760801605_67e1819239_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">The green sausage is chicken, duck, and spinach. To the right: cuisses de
canard (duck legs) and magret de canard (duck breast).</p>
</div>
<p>I never bought a whole duck, but bought a pair of duck legs or duck breasts, or
some links of chicken, duck, and spinach sausage from a vendor at the Arceaux
market almost every other Tuesday. She sold chicken, too, both raw and roasted
in the rotisserie at the back of her stand. Her only non-poultry product was
polenta, which is delicious fried in duck fat.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4676/39658228801_a6da2920df_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4676/39658228801_a6da2920df_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Magret de canard and foie gras</p>
</div>
<p>Duck breast is my favorite red meat and Florence Fabricant describes my
favorite way to cook it in <a class="reference external" href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1294-basic-roast-duck-breast">this recipe</a>. Seared
and then roasted gently in the oven until medium rare, if I had to choose
a last meal, this would be it. The sweet and sour five-spice marinade and glaze
is nice, but salt and pepper is really all a flavorful duck needs.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4759/38959886554_44655a97f7_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4759/38959886554_44655a97f7_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Magret de canard with homemade kimchi</p>
</div>
<p>Because I mostly worked from the house we rented in Montpellier, I could
execute slow cooking recipes while pushing pixels on my computer. Duck legs
confit, simmered for hours in their own fat and juices, are easy to do in
parallel with other tasks and are extremely delicious.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4628/25796742878_1bd89599ba_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4628/25796742878_1bd89599ba_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Cuisses de canard that have spent a couple days wrapped up with spices</p>
</div>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/01/ask-the-food-lab-what-the-heck-is-confit.html">Confit</a>
is the past participle of the French verb confire, "to preserve." Before
refrigeration, this was one of our options for preserving meat. Pork or duck,
covered in steralized fat which keeps oxygen and microbes at bay, can keep
stable and healthy for weeks. I never managed to keep any for longer than a day
or two.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4745/25796746078_d2859c6568_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4745/25796746078_d2859c6568_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Lentilles vertes du Puy are my favorite side for cuisse de canard</p>
</div>
<p>I enjoy foie gras and have a picture of it above, but I don't know enough to
write about it. Ruth and I developed a preference for foie gras mi-cuit
(half-cooked), which is a gently cooked piece of a single whole liver, not
reformed or "en bloc." I don't definitely know which are the best producers,
but had a good experience buying vacuum packed mi-cuit foie gras from a couple
of vendors at the Arceaux market.</p>
<p>I'm going to keep searching for local producers of duck and with a little luck
might be able to return to these recipes in the fall.</p></div>duckfood and drinkfrancelife/2018/01/14/quack-quack-quack.htmlSun, 14 Jan 2018 03:59:45 GMTRunning at Bobcat Ridge/2018/01/12/running-at-bobcat-ridge.htmlSean Gillies<div><p>I ran at the city's Bobcat Ridge Natural Area for the first time this week and
loved it. It's a little too far from my home office for a lunchtime run, and
because my dog is not allowed at all I always pick other destinations for
a weekend outing with my family. I found myself in the neighborhood and jumped
at the chance to check it out.</p>
<p>The City of Fort Collins bought 2600 acres (1050 hectares) of land west of
Masonville in 2003 and opened it to the public in 2006. It's at the very edge
of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, where long linear hogbacks of the
oldest local sandstone (from the Permian period) frame the uplifted granite
bedrock.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4753/24780706727_eef94488a0_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4753/24780706727_eef94488a0_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Parking at the Buffum Canyon entrance</p>
</div>
<p>The trail that loops around the small valley the settlers called West Glade is
4.5 miles (7.5 kilometers) long. The best stretches roll through Ponderosa
pines and over the granite toes of the Rockies on the west side of the
valley.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4708/25777850578_eebee672a3_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4708/25777850578_eebee672a3_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Looking east across West Glade to Milner Mountain from the foot of Green Ridge</p>
</div>
<p>I'm definitely going to get back to Bobcat Ridge this season if the dry and
mild weather continues. There are many more trails, and a hanging valley, to
explore higher up on Green Ridge. I was only there for 45 minutes, but could
easily spend half a day or more on the park's singletrack trails.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4741/39657812001_0fea6f9f0d_b.jpg" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4741/39657812001_0fea6f9f0d_b.jpg">
<p class="caption">Valley Loop trail, looking south</p>
</div></div>bobcat ridgegreen ridgelifeoutdoorsrunning/2018/01/12/running-at-bobcat-ridge.htmlFri, 12 Jan 2018 15:13:24 GMT